Comfortably the finest white-ball international side in the world are now reigning champions in two of the three global tournaments. India’s four-wicket victory over New Zealand in Dubai underscored their standing in the world game.
Their win in the Champions Trophy final was all the more notable for coming without any meaningful contribution from their two most celebrated players. Jasprit Bumrah, perhaps the most ruthless limited-overs bowler of all time, missed the entire tournament through injury. And, when chasing 252 in Dubai, Virat Kohli was dismissed second ball as India stumbled in the middle of the innings. Their depth is such that they were still able to triumph with an over to spare.
Across the three ICC events in the past two years – the 2023 ODI World Cup, last year’s T20 World Cup and this Champions Trophy – India have won 23 games out of 24. Their status as one of the greatest white-ball sides in history is beyond doubt.
Yet the lingering sense remains that unprecedented advantages abetted this Champions Trophy triumph. Hosting a tournament is meant to give sides major benefits: three of the past four ODI World Cups, after all, were won by the primary hosts. Across major tournaments in all sports, never has a non-host country enjoyed the treatment that India were afforded during the Champions Trophy.
Pakistan were announced as hosts of the Champions Trophy back in 2021, and awarded all 15 matches by the International Cricket Council. At the time, no provisions were made for India’s matches being played in a different country.
Since the terrorist atrocities in Mumbai in 2008, India’s government has refused to allow the team to play in Pakistan. Without a relaxation of this stance, the International Cricket Council devised a hybrid arrangement for this tournament. While the other seven competing nations would be based in Pakistan, India would play all their games on the same ground in Dubai.
“It is certainly helping us. We know the conditions and the behaviour of the pitch,” Mohammed Shami admitted before the final. “It is certainly an advantage to play all the matches at one venue.”
New Zealand, their opponents in the final, played in four different venues over the competition, flying more than 7,000km in the process. India were able to set up camp in Dubai, with complete certainty over where all their games would be played. Before the semi-finals, absurdly, South Africa flew to Dubai in vain – remaining there for 18 hours until returning to Pakistan once they learnt that they would not be playing India.
Playing in Dubai, at a time of year when the pitches offer notable turn, also liberated India to pack their squad with spin. In both the semi-final and final, India selected four frontline spinners. One of those, mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy, was not in India’s original squad, but replaced opener Yashasvi Jaiswal. In three matches in Dubai, Chakravarthy took nine wickets.
After the side had scored 69 in the opening 10 overs, Rachin Ravindra’s dismissal, clean bowled by a Kuldeep Yadav googly, marked the start of New Zealand’s asphyxiation by spin.
India’s spin quartet combined for five for 144 from 38 overs, the wrist spin of Chakravarthy and Yadav complementing the relentless accuracy of left-arm finger spinners Jadeja and Axar Patel. Until Michael Bracewell plundered a 39-ball half-century, a strange sense of inertia marked New Zealand’s innings. With Daryl Mitchell misplacing his usual liveliness against spin, New Zealand went 81 balls without hitting a boundary.
As India white-ball captain, Rohit Sharma’s great achievement has been liberating his side to play with greater aggression. Once again, he embraced this approach in knockout cricket, thrashing a supreme 76 to get India ahead of the required rate. Sharma, like his team-mates, would have been grateful for the absence of Matt Henry, the leading wicket-taker in the tournament, with injury.
For all New Zealand’s wiles to haul themselves back into the game after Sharma had led his side to 106-0, India are a remarkably adaptable side. While other teams must make compromises with the bat, ball or both, India’s abundance of multi-skilled players means that they simultaneously have six frontline bowlers and field Ravindra Jadeja, who has a Test average of 35, at No 8. It fell to Jadeja to pull the winning runs to great jubilation at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
Led by Santner, varying his pace with his customary craft, New Zealand’s spin quartet returned combined figures of five for 152 from 35 overs, coming close to matching India’s more-vaunted foursome. But Will O’Rourke and Nathan Smith leaked a combined 78 runs from nine overs. Though Glenn Phillips added to his magisterial collection of catches this tournament by leaping one-handed to dismiss Shubman Gill from extra cover, Daryl Mitchell and Kyle Jamieson missed chances off Gill and Shreyas Iyer.
And so, while New Zealand have reached four of the pat nine ICC white-ball finals, stretching back to 2015, they have lost them all.
As KL Rahul calmly guided India to victory, there could be no doubt that the world’s best team had secured another trophy. India, you suspect, could have won without any extra advantages.
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